DC Universe Online

[cerwillis]

Has anyone tried it? I downloaded it last night, but fell asleep before it finished, so I haven't rolled a toon yet. I'm interested to hear what people's first impressions are. (if anyone has tried it)

[Aubade]

I know my store sold out of both ps3 and PC Copies 1 day after release. Although I think that has a lot more to do with supply than popularity. Although the reviews I've heard about it (and a couple co-workers that were on the beta) Say it's awesome.

[Karnadas]

I've got a total of 15 hours /played (according to steam). It's pretty interesting. I'm not a huge fan of how your characters are solid (i.e. no walking through players) cuz sometimes it can be hard to access vendors, but that touch of realism is kinda nice. I had to go into it expecting an mmo-experience far different than that of wow, if I had expected something similar, I would have been very disappointed. On its own, DCUO is pretty interesting and engaging.

The combat is also a lot more fun, but I don't mind clicking my mouse 139573109875 times.

[Aanar]

Interesting on the solid-characters. I guess they haven't learned that mmorpg lesson yet. Everquest had this too at first, but they got tired of complaints of griefing by players blocking tunnels, doorways, vendors, etc. and turned it off. That and with internet lag, you could lag through people anyway, so what was the point?

[Sabindeus]

I played some during the beta and I really wanted this game to be good because I am a big DCU fan. The combat was sorta fun in that "spam a button, dodge occasionally" way. The overall world layout and questing experience really needed a lot of tightening. Overall I didn't find it intensely engrossing even though I would cheer a bit every time someone I recognized popped up in a quest. Hell right off the bat when Oracle starts talking to you through your communicator I was quite happy, but the game didn't really engage me like WoW does.

One thing that persistently bothers me about these console/PC MMOs is that they all seem to suffer from blurry UIs. I don't know why it is that WoW is the only MMO I've played where the icons and buttons look crisp and hard-edged, and really pop out of the screen, whereas when I look at FFXI and XIV, and DCUO, all the UI elements are a fuzzy mess.

[Shyrtandros]

One thing that persistently bothers me about these console/PC MMOs is that they all seem to suffer from blurry UIs. I don't know why it is that WoW is the only MMO I've played where the icons and buttons look crisp and hard-edged, and really pop out of the screen, whereas when I look at FFXI and XIV, and DCUO, all the UI elements are a fuzzy mess.

Because blizzard is smart enough to catch the part of us that react to "Oooohh Shiny" in almost ALL aspects and not just cutscenes and box covers like other games

[PsiVen]

I've noticed the UI issue with pretty much every MMO I've seen that wasn't WoW. In fact, I've never played another multiplayer game with full script-level UI customization, which I think is highly underrated for the MMO experience. Games in general tend to accept common shortfalls which irk the crap out of me: being unable to bind F1 or CTRL, unable to rebind seemingly random things, animated sliding health that makes it hard to tell how much damage you just took, etc.

[sahiel]

Interesting on the solid-characters. I guess they haven't learned that mmorpg lesson yet. Everquest had this too at first, but they got tired of complaints of griefing by players blocking tunnels, doorways, vendors, etc. and turned it off. That and with internet lag, you could lag through people anyway, so what was the point?

Interestingly, WAR made a very specific choice to go with solid characters, and for a pvp based game where assaulting castles is a large part of the end game, it works amazingly well. No dps running through a solid line of tanks to gank healers, you have actual battle lines and need to use tactics rather than the zerg rush, as you simply bounce off a couple of tanks who are blocking a doorway, allowing the casters behind them to attack from relative safety.

Back on topic DCUO got really good reviews from my friends with it, but after a few days they almost all stopped playing much, none of them are WoW players so it wasn't that they went back to that, from what they've said it seemed really fun to start but didn't do much to keep that feeling going after 10-12+ hours... hope their experience is far from the norm though as I'd love to give it a try, and it'd be a shame to see it not do well.

[cerwillis]

I gotta say, I'm really enjoying this game, at least for now. It plays more like a console game, and works very well with an xbox controller. I am running it on my 32" TV and its plays well like that. That plus vent with one guy that I play with, and its a good time. It helps to 2 man the quests, or else you may die a lot on the end bosses.

I'm playing a "batman" style character that has frost spells and an assault rifle, and im up to lvl 15. We're having a good time 2 manning everything, and they have "duo" raids at 30.

[Jonlo]

Interesting on the solid-characters. I guess they haven't learned that mmorpg lesson yet. Everquest had this too at first, but they got tired of complaints of griefing by players blocking tunnels, doorways, vendors, etc. and turned it off. That and with internet lag, you could lag through people anyway, so what was the point?

Interestingly, WAR made a very specific choice to go with solid characters, and for a pvp based game where assaulting castles is a large part of the end game, it works amazingly well. No dps running through a solid line of tanks to gank healers, you have actual battle lines and need to use tactics rather than the zerg rush, as you simply bounce off a couple of tanks who are blocking a doorway, allowing the casters behind them to attack from relative safety.

Back on topic DCUO got really good reviews from my friends with it, but after a few days they almost all stopped playing much, none of them are WoW players so it wasn't that they went back to that, from what they've said it seemed really fun to start but didn't do much to keep that feeling going after 10-12+ hours... hope their experience is far from the norm though as I'd love to give it a try, and it'd be a shame to see it not do well.

Players are only solid in PvP combat in WAR. In PvE they clip.

[Skye1013]

Players are only solid in PvP combat in WAR. In PvE they clip.

Just imagine if WoW were to do that with BGs... would make WSG and a few others more interesting...

[Aanar]

Players are only solid in PvP combat in WAR. In PvE they clip.

In terms of realism, I can see solid characters being more realistic. But in many situations it makes gameplay worse. And really, what should matter most is making the gameplay as compelling as possible.

IMO characters should be solid only if you have some recourse to someone blocking a door/tunnel/vendor.

If the siuation is pvp then of course you have the option to attack. Usually you can't attack your own side though unless you're talking old-school Ultima Online. If you had an option to /push someone on your own side, that could work. Realistically, you have the option (though frowned upon) in real life. People get mad and push jerks in real life, so you need some option to try to get past them. In Everquest, you had to petition and wait for a GM to show up (if ever).

For game developers it seems like it's easier to just turn off player to player clipping. If they were cleaver about it, they'd could make the client side display your character pushing through a crowd of people without actually trying to alter each of those persons' coordinates on the server or their clients. It would give you the best of both for pve - realism and playability.

For WAR PvP, that is cool that tanks can physically guard doors from the enemy. Does that also prevent you from running past your own tanks?

[Sabindeus]

For WAR PvP, that is cool that tanks can physically guard doors from the enemy. Does that also prevent you from running past your own tanks?

From what I remember in WAR tanks also had multiple options for pushing people around and making them sorry if they tried to do certain things. Being able to actually stand between the enemy and your ally/base/flag/whatever was a pretty big deal.

[Invisusira]

One thing that persistently bothers me about these console/PC MMOs is that they all seem to suffer from blurry UIs. I don't know why it is that WoW is the only MMO I've played where the icons and buttons look crisp and hard-edged, and really pop out of the screen, whereas when I look at FFXI and XIV, and DCUO, all the UI elements are a fuzzy mess.

Do you play them all at the same resolution? CRT monitors went the way of the dinosaur, and along with them dynamically adjustable resolutions. UIs and text may look fuzzy at lower resolutions because many newer monitors simply aren't meant to do that; they basically just resize the image instead of actually changing their resolution.

[Sabindeus]

One thing that persistently bothers me about these console/PC MMOs is that they all seem to suffer from blurry UIs. I don't know why it is that WoW is the only MMO I've played where the icons and buttons look crisp and hard-edged, and really pop out of the screen, whereas when I look at FFXI and XIV, and DCUO, all the UI elements are a fuzzy mess.

Do you play them all at the same resolution? CRT monitors went the way of the dinosaur, and along with them dynamically adjustable resolutions. UIs and text may look fuzzy at lower resolutions because many newer monitors simply aren't meant to do that; they basically just resize the image instead of actually changing their resolution.

No I'm not talking about LCD pixel scaling fuzziness here